this post was submitted on 27 Feb 2025
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Seems a bit biased to ignore 47% of the global OS userbase with android.
Even if VLC was great for ghetto windows, android alone almost has double its userbase.
The reason I don't include Android has more to do with the fact that it's Linux in the same way macOS is. Sure android uses Linux and the kernel to varying degrees, but at this point I would consider android a distinct entity that is separate to Linux. I honestly can't find the right words to really explain what I mean by that in a more specific way than just what I said, though, so this is the best my tiny beaver brain can do for the moment.
Linux is really only a thing because it ISNT Unix (which macos is). Theyre more related than windows because they're both POSIX compatible, but share essentially no codebase.
A rooted android phone on the other hand is just plain ol linux compiled for ARM, with some custom google jazz. It utilises a lot of Linux components like cgroups and SELinux - commonly found on desktop Linux (especially with containers).
Its not really that important in a broad sense to be honest, but it definitely makes android a Linux distro.